Short hops and hard knocks with Red Sox beat writer Ian Browne.

Forgettable Friday night in Boston sports

The Red Sox kicked off a three-game series tonight against their
forever rivals, the Yankees. it was a potentially great pitching
matchup with ace Josh Beckett taking on young gun Phil Hughes, who has
been electric this season. Beckett was strong early, but faltered in
the fourth and sixth innings. The Yankees cruised to a 10-3 win.

There
was a whole lot going on for a Boston sports fan tonight, but none of
it turned out well. The Celtics were a couple of miles down the road
at the Garden taking on the Cavs in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference
Semifinals. But the have owned this game from start to finish en route
to a 124-95 thumping of the Celts.

Then you have the Bruins,
who were trying to sweep the Flyers and advance to the Conference
Finals for the first time since 1992. But the B’s lost in OT.

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25 Comments

The Celtics should be embarrassed with their performance tonight, the Cavs are good but they are not this good. Cleveland came ready to play ( especially LeBron James ) and obviously the Celtics didn’t. The Cavs took the court with intensity and a sense of urgency. It’s all about attitude in the playoffs, whether your playing basketball, hockey or baseball.

Swisher continues to give Boston fits, he fits like a glove with the Yankees.

i just hope this weekend is a wakeup call to the front office. you got the second highest payroll in the game and you continually get embarassed like this by your chief opposition that should tell you something.

well lets summarize. NY’s #4 starter looks better than boston’s “ace”. boston’s 2 best position players are pedroia and youk. neither of them would start for NY. and to top it off TB is probably better than NY. okay. i think i’ll just focus on next year. should be a nice battle with toronto for 3rd. you folks have a nice summer.

I do NOT agree that Pedroia and Youk could not start for NY.
However,I think it’s fair at this point to wonder why the Sox gave Beckett the big extension? I mean a 1-1 record and 7+ ERA after thirty games? Beckett couldn’t start for the PIRATES right now!

Sounds like the Sox management may be more loyal to their past-proven stars than even we realize (which is good this day and age, to have some sense of team cohesion) — but then they curiously try to trade folks like Lowell (complications in that situation as well, given his injury and performance last year). I am beginning to think that Sabermatics is no longer working, or that so many folks are using it now that it has become increasingly difficult to succeed with it. It does seem that the Sox are getting on the wrong side of a lot of player trends lately. Let’s see, they got zero from Schill his last year (for $8 mil) and their own medical staff might have contributed to that timing, not enough from Lowell last year, but to exasperate that are wasting him this year, not enough from Papi for second year running (my book at least three years), nothing from Lugo (his entire tenure), Coco never got going, revolving door of short stops, Penny, Smoltz, … maybe time to jettison or seriously tweak Sabermatics, or those who can’t interpret it correctly.

That just said, any team would have looked bad with the pitching performance Beckett turned in last night. The rest of this series will show better whether the Sox have turned a corner for the season or not. However, obviously their SP problems are not over, because Beckett has exhibited this pattern for sometime now, and is in theory our #1 pitcher.

I agree with you about Theo and the baseball ops. dept. ( then again they could be called the baseball oops. dept. ) Alot of bad contracts are being handed out. 188 million dollars doesn’t go that far anymore these days. Some of these ugly contracts come off the books after this season but all that does is give Theo more money to hand out and we all know that hasn’t worked out lately.

Sooner or later Sox management is going to realize that some teams read what Beckett is going to throw. The Yanks, Blue Jays and some other teams pummel him every time they see him-it’s not a coincidence; we love facing Beckett, so do the Yanks..Don’t believe me-check the splits…lol

All Buchholz needs to do is focus on the first 6 hitters in this N.Y. lineup today, the bottom third of this N.Y. lineup is full of outs today. The Red Sox approach at the plate should be make the big fella work!

I don’t want to say that today’s game is a big game but they need a win against N.Y. in the worst way.

Great to see Lowell in the lineup today. When does Lowell end up being the full-time D.H.???? Lowell still has some gas in his tank!

Re: comments by dgneubert. Should the RedSox be looking for a new pitching coach? Brad Penny seems to be doing great with the Cards. Was he not completely rehabbed when the Sox signed him, or is Farrell the culprit here? Would their pitching coach Duncan consider coming here even though we traded away his son? Much of the pitching staff (except Buchholz) seems to be underperforming. Bard is wild. Ramirez completely unpredictable. Papelbon has lost his dominance. Beckett–well, look at last night–and badly behaved, too. (John Henry may have told Epstein to resign Beckett under any circumstance.) Re: Schilling, who wanted to have the surgery after the 2007 season–the Sox told him to rehab instead. Re: Bay, the Sox told him to have knee surgery (does he really have bad knees?–what was that all about?). Martinez turns out to be a second-string catcher, but Beltre is at third–no room for Martinez. Send Ortiz to Pawtucket and Beckett to the bullpen. Give Lowell the DH. Different roster every night. Huge payroll. Huge underperformance except from Pedroia and Buchholz, and, boy, do I miss Masterson.

Hey, DGN, I had seen your question to me on the other site, and hoped you’d catch my answer to it. I’ll be happy to answer the question–it just isn’t a short answer! ;) In sum, though, yes, I follow, and root for, the Patriots, Red Sox, Celtics, and Bruins. :)

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